


Hold Back the Tide

by Phoxphyre



Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: Alternate Universe - Napoleonic Wars, Alternate Universe - Pirate, Alternate Universe - Regency, Angst with a Happy Ending, Erotic Swordfighting, I may have read the Aubrey/Maturin books too many times, M/M, Much swashing of buckles, Period-Typical Homophobia, Period-Typical Racism, Shepard is not from Omaha but he's still awesome, There Was Only One Cave, War of 1812, baz with chronic illness, lost city of atlantis, muskets cannons and cutlasses oh my, pirates just outside the caribbean, sargasso sea
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-05
Updated: 2020-11-05
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:27:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 16,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27408802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phoxphyre/pseuds/Phoxphyre
Summary: Simon and Baz have hated each other since they met in the British Royal Navy years ago. Now it’s 1813 and the tides of war have carried them in different directions: Baz is the captain of a Royal Navy ship, while Simon has turned to piracy.When a chance encounter on the high seas brings them together, Baz is determined to bring Simon to justice. Then they’re shipwrecked together on a mysterious island and they start to realize that all their assumptions may be wrong: about the world, and about each other.And they may be called on to do more than they thought possible.In between there will be naval battles, sword fights, magic, and—just maybe—true love.Written for Carry on Through the Ages 2020 (Modern History).
Relationships: Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch/Simon Snow
Comments: 16
Kudos: 28
Collections: Carry On Through The Ages





	1. The Ships

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve had this story running around in my head ever since COTTA was first announced, and I’m so excited to finally share it with you.
> 
> A big thank you to my betas, [Ampithoe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ampithoe/pseuds/Ampithoe) and [Subparselkie](https://subparselkie.tumblr.com/) for the great advice on characterization and for keeping me from the worst of my nautical excesses. 
> 
> Another huge thank you to [BazzyBelle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BazzyBelle/pseuds/BazzyBelle) for running COTTA…I'm so excited for all this new historical content!
> 
> There’s an accompanying [Pirate Playlist](https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxs0ZodU--QdbZ1O5KYsBQyCjvw4rxi6t).
> 
> I’m dropping the first two chapters now and will probably wait to post the rest until I have it all written. I have a solid outline and I’m very excited to write the rest of it, so it will be finished!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a chance encounter on the high seas reunites old enemies.

BAZ

Atlantic Ocean, 1813

HMS _Vampire_ , 32 guns

My mother loved to tell stories about the lost city of Atlantis.

When other children grew up with nursery rhymes or stories of King Arthur, I was raised on lost cities. She loved them all: Atlantis, Ys, Cantre’r Gwaelod. But Atlantis was her favorite.

Plato said that the story originally came from Egypt; the great lawmaker Solon heard it from priests in an Egyptian temple and brought the story back to Athens.

And it is that part that appealed to my mother, I think. Her grandmother was Egyptian, having come to England fleeing the famines. I think she spent her life trying to assemble the pieces of her origins, as one might try to reassemble a shattered teacup.

I don’t know what’s making me think of those stories now. Perhaps it’s that I’m trying to write a letter to Fiona, and failing. (She and my father are the only ones who loved her as much as I did. I don’t know why that should make it so hard to talk to them, but there it is.)

I suppose I was lucky to be weaned on lost cities. It readied me for all the loss to come.

***

“It’s getting worse, isn’t it?”

“I’m fine.”

“You always say that. Take off your shirt and lie down.”

I am captain of the _Vampire_ , but in matters of medicine Niall rules the ship. I do as he says, pulling my shirt over my head. I fold it neatly and place it atop my blue uniform coat; there’s no reason to be untidy. We’re in the great cabin, early afternoon sunlight streaming through the stern windows. I lie back on the table; the position makes me think uncomfortably of the statue of a dead man atop a tomb.

Niall puts his head on my chest and taps lightly with his fingers. His hair tickles my bare skin; he is only doing his duty, but the touch of skin on skin feels so good that I want to pull him onto the table with me. It’s been such a long time.

I close my eyes and try to relax as his fingers tap and prod my chest. Medicine seems like magic to me, but I’m grateful enough when he sews me up after a battle. It’s probably due to Niall that I’ve managed to keep up this charade as long as I have.

Niall raises his head, fixing me with watery blue eyes behind round gold-framed spectacles. “Any blood?”

I hesitate. “Once. This morning.”

He stands, shaking his head at me. “Baz.”

“I’m _fine_.”

“You’re _dying_.” And I can’t help it; the words make me shudder, even though I’ve heard them before. I’ve been hearing them for years as my body goes about the business of dying slowly, by inches. “You should go home, help your father run the estate like he wants you to. Spend time with your family.”

“No.” I shake my head. “Father has Magnus to be his heir now. It wouldn’t be fair to go home just so they can watch me die.” This is true enough, but we both know it’s only part of the truth. If you want to run from your fate, there are few things better than a frigate at sea. The work of the ship is endlessly distracting, and there’s always the hope that I’ll be knocked on the head and die quickly and heroically.

My whole career I’ve been fighting myself as much as the King’s enemies. So far I’m winning, but there’s only so long one can hold back the tide.

“You’ve lost a stone at least. What happens if you collapse in the middle of a battle?”

I shrug. “I die, and Dev gets to write a very pretty letter home. I’m sure I’ll make a handsome corpse.”

He shakes his head. “Is there anything I can do to make you take this seriously?”

“Niall,” I say, putting my hand on his shoulder. “Thank you. For everything. But no.”

***

_Dear Fiona,_

_We have now been in pursuit of a pirate for a day and a night, and I hope to take her today._

_But the strangest thing is, I know her captain…_

I sigh and rub at my eyes, laying down the pen. I can’t send this; Fiona will think I’m mad. Madder.

But she wasn’t with me yesterday.

We spied the ship in mid-morning: a beautiful, trim topsail schooner with two strongly raked masts, her sides painted black and gold, sailing a parallel course under light sail. I gave orders to clear for action—more as a matter of principle than anything else, for the general feeling aboard was that she was a British packet. A ripple of pleased anticipation went around the ship.

“It’s been a long time since we had any mail,” I heard Mr. Goodwin, the master, say to Dev.

“Perhaps Miss Moore will have written to me,” said Dev, with relish. He paused. “Or perhaps Miss Smith?”

I shook my head, amused. Dev is my first lieutenant, and also my cousin on the Grimm side. It was just like him, to be courting two girls at once: the one a noted beauty, the other with a noted fortune. For some reason they seemed to think his battle scars only made him more attractive. (I couldn’t see it, myself.) Niall and I had a running bet about which one he would choose, the stakes changing with each set of letters home.

“Run up the colours,” I said. The British flag went up the signal halyard and broke free, streaming in the breeze, and the schooner ran up her own colours in return: British, as expected.

“Make our number, and send up the private signal,” I said. Our number identified us as the _Vampire_ ; the private signal was a code that helped us tell friend from foe.

There was a delay as she returned the signal, a brief confusion of flags, as all the time our converging courses brought us closer together. But at last the private signal went up, accurately enough. A bit of tension went out of the officers on the quarterdeck.

I watched the schooner closely through my glass as we bore down on her. Her deck was sparsely populated, as if she were undermanned, and she was slower than I would expect. I guessed she had been damaged in the storm two nights previous, and possibly some of her men injured as well. Perhaps I would send Niall over to see if he could assist her surgeon.

We were within half a mile now and closing fast. It was then, when I lowered my glass from the rigging to her deck, that I caught my first glimpse of the man at the wheel.

The shock of recognition ran through my body like fire.

In my memory he was an awkward adolescent, with limbs too long for his body and the perpetual scrawny look of a boy who had survived too long on ship’s rations and rats caught in the hold. Now he was a broad-shouldered man in a snuff-colored coat, with a thatch of golden-brown curls spilling from under his hat. He stood with his hands gripping the wheel hard, his face reddened from the wind. Perhaps it was his expression that I recognized more than anything: intent and pugnacious, spoiling for a fight. I had learned to dread that look.

Every muscle in my body went taut.

“Hands about ship!” I roared.

The officers on deck turned to stare at me for a shocked moment; I had just ordered them to turn the ship around while they were still confidently expecting mail. Then the habit of discipline took over. The bosun sounded his pipes and men swarmed up the ratlines. In the bustle Dev edged closer to me.

“Sir?” he said. He couldn’t use my name, not on the quarterdeck of my own ship.

“Their captain is Simon Snow,” I said. Dev raised one eyebrow (he learned that from me) and I huffed impatiently. “We were midshipmen together in the _Indefatigable.”_

His eyes widened as he brought the name to mind. (He _should_ remember. My history with Snow was…memorable.)

“But that isn’t the important thing. What _is_ important is that in 1810 he was third lieutenant of the _Minotaur_.”

“Christ,” said Dev.

Everyone in the Royal Navy knows the story. Three years ago the crew of the _Minotaur_ mutinied. They slaughtered the captain and several of the officers and escaped with the ship.

And when the list of the mutineers came out, Simon Snow’s name was at the top.

I said, “If that is Snow aboard—and it is—then that is no British ship.”

The _Vampire_ was turning away from the schooner; she’s a sleek ship, and I’d spent months working her crew into a state of high discipline. As she spun the schooner’s cannons ran out, mouths yawning wide, and then vanished in the smoke of her broadside. Most of the shots fell short; one, pitched high, whistled through the rigging.

“Fire as they bear,” I called. I felt the broadside in the timbers below my feet, a deep coughing growl as each cannon fired in turn. I saw one of the balls hit her amidships and another strike splinters from her side, but we were quickly moving out of range.

On the schooner there were men swarming up from below and more rising from hiding in the tops, aiming muskets at our decks and racing to pack on more sail.

“Simon Snow is a _pirate_ ,” I said incredulously. Dev smirked at me, and I scowled back at him and raised my glass to the schooner again.

And this time, in the lens, almost close enough to touch, Simon Snow was looking steadily back at me.

For a moment it was if we again stood across from each other on the dueling ground, pistols aimed at each other’s hearts.

I hastily snapped the glass closed. (No good had ever come of looking at Simon Snow.) _Plan, Basilton._ We outgunned and outmanned the schooner, and she was slow, due to the storm damage—

I frowned, something tickling my memory. There was a knot of men about the schooner’s stern; I had thought little of it when I thought she was a packet, but now...

I opened my glass again (carefully avoiding Snow this time) and studied them more closely. It looked like they were sawing at something: a pair of long ropes that ran into the water. With a sinking feeling, I realized what it was.

“Mr. Devereaux, they are cutting loose a drogue-sail,” I said. No wonder she had seemed so sluggish; the drogue added drag, making a vessel seem slower than she was. The schooner was not wounded at all.

“The fox,” said Dev, shaking his head admiringly.

“Simon Snow is a mutineer and a _traitor_ ,” I said, more loudly than I had intended; several heads turned to look at me, and I scowled.

“Still a good trick, though,” said Dev. “It’s like something you would do, Ba—Sir.”

Across the water the cable parted; I could hear the cheer that went up from the schooner as she shot ahead and left the drogue behind. The wind had cleared the smoke and I could read through my glass the name painted on her stern: _Merwolf_.

I called out more orders; the helmsman spun the wheel and we turned back toward the _Merwolf_. The decks were a familiar chaos of men dashing to and fro, the sail-trimmers racing up the masts, boys bringing up powder from below. On the deck below the gun-crews were reloading with the studied speed I had drilled into them. At the bows the gunner and his crews had already reloaded the two brass chaser guns and were sighting along the long barrels.

“Aim for her rigging,” I called. I wanted to risk her hull as little as possible; she would make a beautiful prize. (Although Snow himself was the true prize.)

The gunner nodded, squinted, adjusted the gun’s elevation, and touched the match, already bowing his body for the recoil. His mate fired the second gun at almost the same instant.

I squinted, watching the fall of the shot. The first screamed through the topsail; the second struck a glancing blow to her mainmast.

“Good practise,” I remarked, to cover the pounding of my heart. My chest felt tight and hot. _Not now_ , I thought, willing my body to obey me for once.

The _Vampire_ was ranging up on the _Merwolf_ now. I could hear the gun-captains shouting to their crews on the main deck below my feet. The sulfurous scent of slow-match and gunpowder pricked my nose.

“Yaw to larboard, Mr. Parker,” I said to the helmsman. He spun the wheel left; the _Vampire_ veered off her course, bringing our starboard broadside to bear.

“Fire as they bear,” I shouted.

Our guns went off in a thunderous broadside. Smoke swirled over the deck and between the ships, so thick that I could not see the _Merwolf_ or trace the line of our fire. But somewhere deep in my stomach I could feel Snow across the water, waiting for the right moment to fire.

Then with a huge crashing roar the schooner’s broadside went off. I heard the screaming whistle of a 12-lb ball; next to me, my clerk gave a sobbing gasp and collapsed to the deck in a welter of blood. His legs had been shot away by the ball, and his blood was running down into the scuppers.

I opened my mouth to order the men to carry him down to Niall. But he was already dead, gazing sightlessly at the wispy clouds overhead. One of the crews seized the body and slid it overboard. His name was Abbott, a first-voyager; his father was a friend of my father’s.

The _Merwolf’s_ small armsmen were firing down from her tops now, trying to clear our decks; our Royal Marines were returning fire from our own masts, firing and reloading with steady discipline. All around me men were shouting, falling, already covered in sweat and smoke and blood.

Then a sudden gust of wind cleared away the gunsmoke. Across the water I saw Snow clearly, still gripping the wheel as if urging his ship on with the sheer power of his will. The _Merwolf_ had surged ahead, and suddenly I could see what he was doing, Snow’s whole plan laid out in my mind. He would cross our bows and rake us, firing his cannons down the whole length of the _Vampire_ , and then board us in the smoke while we were still reeling. He had a third of our guns and less than half our men, but surprise was on his side. I had seen him win with less.

I ran forward, shouting at the gun-crews to fire. Below me the cannons went off again, shaking the deck so that I almost stumbled. Through the smoke I saw the _Merwolf’s_ foretopmast waver and then, slowly, fall, taking the big square topsail with it. The schooner shuddered, her way momentarily checked. Men swarmed up her masts with axes to cut the rigging away. Snow had given the wheel to a tall black man and had an axe in his hands, chopping furiously at the lines that still held the fallen sail to the ship. He had lost his hat and even through the smoke the warm sun turned his hair to gold.

As if he could feel my eyes on him he looked up and saw me. I saw his mouth move, but I couldn’t hear what he said over the din.

Dropping the axe, he stood, reached into his belt and drew a pistol. Slowly, deliberately he lowered his arm to aim at me. It felt intimate, somehow. (It made me think of the last time he had stood in just such a position, aiming a pistol at me.)

Then he pulled the trigger. I felt the ball go whistling by my head; the wind of its passing pulled a long strand of my hair from its tie. I brushed it back behind my ear, crouching by the cannon.

Snow turned away and shouted something to his men. The mast fell free and the schooner swung around, turning away from us. She was running.

“Mr. McDonald, the slow-match,” I said. He handed it to me and I sighted along the long brass barrel, waiting carefully for the _Vampire’s_ rise. I pulled the lanyard and the gun went off under me, leaping backwards until it was caught by its breeching; I moved out of its way automatically, watching the fall of the shot.

The nine-pound ball flew across the distance between us and struck the _Merwolf’s_ rudder square, shattering it into splinters.

I stood, brushing dust from my breeches. The _Merwolf_ was fast, but with a shattered rudder and no topsail she would have no choice but to run downwind.

I was already thinking of the articles they would publish if I were to capture one of the leaders of the _Minotaur_ mutiny—especially if I brought in the schooner as well. There would be prize money, too, not that I needed it.

No, it was my family I was thinking of, and my legacy. I would die soon (one way or another), and I meant to leave a name behind me. Tyrannus Basilton Grimm-Pitch would not sink without a ripple.

“See to the repairs, then make all sail she will bear,” I said. “We will chase.”

***

Now, in my cabin, I throw down my pen in disgust. I cannot say all of this to Fiona. She’s an iron bitch, but she prefers hearing about my battles when they’re safely over. And I can imagine what she’ll say:

_We’re at war with the French and the Americans, Basil. Are you sure you should be haring after pirates?_

And:

 _Simon Snow? Isn’t he that boy from your first commission? Are you_ quite _sure of your motives?_

And:

 _His guardian_ is _a major thorn in the side of our political aims. On second thought, please feel free to kill him._

(Sometimes I think that Fiona’s voice in my head sounds suspiciously like my own. But then I remember that I am not nearly so bloodthirsty.)

The _Vampire_ is running fast to the northeast; I can hear the wind singing through the ropes above and the waves rushing past her hull.

Sighing, I give in and go to the locker where I store my books. I thumb through several of them until I find what I’m looking for.

Yes, I remembered correctly; the account of the _Minotaur_ mutiny was published in one of the 1810 issues of the Naval Chronicle. I had kept it because it happened to also include the report on an action in which I had distinguished myself.

The mutiny is described in a letter from a Mr. Lamb, then the second lieutenant of the _Minotaur_. I remember being introduced to him at one of Mrs. Harte’s routs in Port Mahon years ago. A handsome man, somewhat older than me, with a head of shiny auburn hair of which he was inordinately proud. I remember admiring his graceful manners and perfectly turned out rig; when his eyes met mine, I had the shock of recognizing someone like myself. (When you suffer from desires that might sentence you to hanging, you develop a keen sense for those who share them.) I might have tried to know him better, but the exigencies of the service had swept us both away before anything could come of it.

According to Lamb’s letter, the mutineers broke down the door to Captain Braden’s cabin and murdered him in a manner so brutal that it was accompanied by a warning that the description might not be suitable for ladies. They hunted down the first lieutenant like a rat in the hold and slaughtered him; several other men were killed in the general fighting that followed. Lamb and some of the other loyal men only barely managed to escape to one of the ship’s boats.

Mr. Lamb relates, with great modesty and delicacy, how he took command of the boat and brought it safely into Jamaica, then writes:

_I regret extremely to report that several of His Majesty’s officers took part in the mutiny. I mention in particular the_ Minotaur’s _third lieutenant, Simon Snow, who appeared to be one of the leaders. He was a promising officer—indeed, I believe the captain saw fit to mention him in several of his reports of the ship’s engagements—and so I am the more saddened to have to report his conduct._

_I attach hereto a list of the mutineers, with descriptions to aid in their recapture._

I turn several pages to reach Lamb’s list.

_Simon Snow. Aged 25 years. 5 feet 9 inches high._

_Complexion: Fair, red cheeks, given to sunburn._

_Hair: Brown, tending to gold in bright sun_

_Eyes: Blue_

_Make: Strong, broad-shouldered_

_Marks: Much spotted with freckles and moles_

Rereading it, the description seems almost poetic. But I hardly need it to confirm what I saw. It is as if the _Merwolf’s_ guns shattered the hourglass of my memory, pouring out images like sand:

_\- Snow, much younger, curled up around his hollow ribs as the toe of my boot drives into his side_

_\- Bronze curls haloed by sun framed against the open hatchway, the blood from my broken nose dripping beneath my fingers_

_\- His face hovering over mine, all those freckles in sharp relief as the dawn stains the sky the delicate pink of a seashell and I clasp my hand over the spreading red in my side_

I stand, clapping the book shut, as if the motion can push the memories from me.

The rest isn’t here anyway. I don’t have the volumes that document it, but I know the story.

The mutineers—presumably still led by Simon Snow—took the _Minotaur_ to La Guaira and turned her over to the Spaniards. Less than a year later Lamb led one of the boarding parties that recaptured her in a daring cutting-out mission. He wrote another graceful and humble letter afterwards, if I remember correctly, and was feted and voted a decorative service of plate for his bravery. Afterwards he was named captain of the recommissioned _Minotaur_ , which had been renamed the _Nemesis_. The public practically demanded it; it was too pretty a story to resist, the ship that had almost been his grave giving him his step.

Some twenty of the mutineers were found aboard the _Minotaur_ when she was recaptured, but there was no sign of Simon Snow.

Every so often one or two of the escaped mutineers would be discovered in a captured ship. The court martials (and inevitable hangings) that followed kept the incident fresh in everyone’s minds. But none of the men were Simon Snow.

In fact, Snow had not been seen since the _Minotaur_. When I thought of him at all—mostly at night when I couldn’t sleep—I assumed he had died in some seedy port or storm at sea.

The Snow of my memory was aggravatingly righteous. It’s hard to imagine him at the head of a bloody band of mutineers hacking his captain to pieces. But long years of war change a person; I know that as well as anyone.

I go up on deck and look for the chase. There she is: still far off, but drawing closer. If we do not lose her in the darkness, we should catch her tomorrow.

And then I will see Simon Snow court-martialed and hanged.

SIMON

Schooner _Merwolf_ , 12 guns

Fuck.

Fucking Tyrannus Basilton Grimm-Pitch.

Fuck fuck fuck.

I can see her there, a dark blob well closer than the lip of the horizon: the _Vampire_. Baz’s ship. (And what kind of a name for a ship is the _Vampire_ anyway? Dark, isn’t it?)

The one good thing that came out of the mutiny—the one good fucking thing—was that I would never have to see fucking Basilton Pitch again. We’ve hated each other since he first made my life a torment on the _Indefatigable_ ; it was almost worth becoming a fugitive to leave him behind.

And yet here he is, like an avenging angel, come to see me hang.

And he’ll catch us, too; we all know it, the whole fucking crew of us exchanging glances around the _Merwolf’s_ deck in between urging the last ounce of speed out of her and trying to repair our damaged spars while we’re on the wing.

It should be funny: _Simon Snow, the pirate_. Most of the pirates were killed or scared off almost a hundred years ago, and most of the ones that are left are over on the Barbary coast. Of _course_ I would go into piracy when it’s not even fashionable anymore. So very Simon Snow.

Well, we’re a privateer, technically. Except that we don’t have a letter of marque to sail against the British (we’re working on it). So to T. Basilton Grimm-Pitch of the fucking Royal Navy, we’re a pirate.

It hardly matters; pirate or privateer, I’ll hang just the same. (If he catches me.)

We were so proud of our little trap, with the drogue-sail and the British private signal; we’d been lucky enough to take a British merchantman before she had time to sink her log and signal-book. (We took her cargo and stores and locked her men up in the hold with food and water; we’re pirates, but we’re not monsters.) But we never intended to catch a fucking _British frigate_. With fucking Basilton Pitch in command.

Penny would say, “Think, Simon. Close your eyes and try to concentrate and _think_.” She’s always telling me to think. If I ever get back to port, there will probably be a letter waiting for me where she tells me to think. I’m not stupid, no matter what she says. But I don’t see a way to get out of this one.

Of course, I _usually_ can’t think of a way out of things, and somehow I’m still here. But I never had Baz fucking Pitch chasing me before.

I almost fell over when I looked through my telescope (it’s a beautiful one; the Magus sent it to me) and saw him standing on the deck of the enemy ship. I recognized him right away, even though he’s changed. Same long black hair drawn back in a tail; same narrow, pointed face with ridiculous cheekbones; same bend in that long, arched nose. (I did that.)

He looks different, though. Older, yeah. (We’re both older.) But…paler, too. His skin used to be this rich coppery colour. We would all get more or less brown in the sun on the West Indies station. (Well, everyone else would get brown, and I would just burn off layer after layer of my skin.) But he started browner than the rest of us, and he just looked smoother and deeper and somehow above it all when the rest of us were peeling and wrinkling. One of the foremast jacks on the _Indefatigable_ told me that his grandmother was foreign.

Anyway, you can still tell that he’s brown underneath, but it’s like there’s a pale film over him. He looks kind of…grey, with dark circles under his eyes. And he’s too thin, his blue uniform coat hanging off of him. I know because I watched him for a long time through the glass. (It’s important to know your enemy.) He looks like a corpse that wandered up from below. A beautiful corpse.

Shepard finds me standing by the taffrail, still training my glass on the pursuing ship. We’re much too far to make out individual people on her deck, but I can still _feel_ Baz’s eyes on me.

He claps me on the back. “It won’t make that frigate any slower to stare at her,” he says. He sounds far too cheerful for a man regarding imminent death in the form of 18-pound cannonballs. But then, Shep has escaped certain death even more times than I have. I guess he’s earned his optimism.

Below me Keris curses. She and Gareth are in rope slings hung over the stern, trying to fit a makeshift rudder cobbled together from a spar. The _Merwolf_ is so low to the water that there are no windows like in a larger ship, just the smooth expanse of her stern and the shark fin of her rudder, now all jagged and gaping where the ball passed through it. It’s an awkward position to work in, especially with the schooner racing through the waves carrying all the sail she’ll bear.

Another curse, followed by a splash. Keris shouts “Man overboard!” In the ship’s wake I see Gareth’s head going quickly astern, a shocked and rather stupid look on his face.

Briefly I wonder if we can just leave him (he’s more trouble than he’s worth most of the time) but I’m already stripping off my coat as I think it. Behind me, Shepard is roaring at the men to shorten sail—without the square maintopsail or rudder we can’t back sail or come about.

I drop my coat on the deck behind me (I can’t afford to ruin it; it’s my only one) and dive into the sea. The water is warm, but the schooner is going so fast that the surface comes up to strike me like a blow. Then I pierce the white froth of the wake, bubbles hurrying past my head, and plunge deep into the clear blue depths. I strike for the surface at once, taking great strokes towards where I last saw Gareth.

I find him sputtering and thrashing in the _Merwolf’s_ wake. (Idiot; he’ll only drown himself faster.) I heave him up; he tries to get both arms around me, and I push him off so that he doesn’t drag me down with him.

“Lie back,” I hiss. “Do you _want_ to drown?” He subsides, his chest heaving like a maiden’s in a lurid novel; his imitation of floating is not very convincing, but at least he’s not trying to drown me. I wrap an arm around his chest and strike out for the _Merwolf_.

The crew has gotten a boat over the side, Shepard pulling hard at the oars. I swim to meet him; together we half heave Gareth over the side (he’s no help at all) and pull as fast as we can for the schooner.

By the time we’ve scrambled up her sides, gotten the boat back on the booms, and spread the sails again, we’ve lost half an hour and the _Vampire_ is noticeably closer. I can feel Baz behind me, drawing closer all the time.

***

Later, in my cabin, I shuck my wet clothes and root around in my sea chest for a change. There’s barely room in here to turn around, but after years in the Royal Navy midshipmen’s berths this still seems like a vast, luxurious amount of privacy.

My fingers brush paper as I pull out a pair of slops and a new shirt (“new” is a relative term; all of my clothes are salt-stained and mended.) Once I’m dressed I take out the letter and carry it over to the tiny table in the corner that serves as my writing desk. I spread it out and study it again. It was originally written in cipher; all of the Magus’ letters are in code. I deciphered it and wrote it out again. It’s odd to see his words in my handwriting, as if I’m corresponding with myself.

_London, England 1813_

_Dear Simon,_

_Thank you for the update on your activities. I will say no more, in case this falls into the wrong hands. I will only say: well done, Simon. Well done indeed._

_You asked after your pardon. You must be patient and trust that I am working towards that goal, which is my fondest hope as I know it is yours. Even bringing to bear all my influence at the Admiralty, it will take time. The official attitude towards mutiny is very grim, as you well know. But I have represented all of the extenuating circumstances, just as you have conveyed them to me._

_In the meantime you could not be better placed to bring about our mutual goals. My heart is always with the revolutionaries; I wish I could be there with you on the front lines of the fight for the oppressed. But alas, I can be more help to the cause where I am, providing aid from behind enemy lines._

I carefully fold the letter again, running my fingers along the seams and over his signature on the reverse: _Magus_. He never signs his real name, for the same reason his letters are in code.

He always says that: that he wishes he could be here. I wish that too. I think I would know better what to do, if he were here.

When he plucked me out of the orphanage in Lancashire and made me his ward, I felt for the first time that I _had_ a purpose. (That I might have a _future_.) I was crushed when after six months he told me that he had found me a place on board a Navy ship. He wished very much that I could stay with him, he said, but everyone had their own role to play and mine was on the sea.

“The fortunes of nations will be decided at sea, Simon,” he said, putting his hand on my shoulder. “And if Napoleon should win, all my plans with come to naught.”

“But…isn’t Napoleon a revolutionary too?”

“Bah.” He spit. “Napoleon is what happens when revolutions decay. He is the rotting corpse of the dreams of the French people, a petty dictator dressed in revolutionary clothing.”

So I went to sea. And when I was lonely or Baz was crueler than usual I told myself that at least I was doing my part. I had been chosen.

The mutiny was not part of the Magus’ plans, however.

I was terrified to tell him. I thought he might wash his hands of me entirely. When his letter arrived I carried it with me for hours before I had the courage to read it.

But the Magus was strangely delighted. He had found having an ally confined by the strict rules and discipline of the Royal Navy less useful than he had thought, he said. But that same ally with the freedom to make his own decisions, and his own crew…!

He _was_ disappointed that I had left the _Minotaur: “A British man-of-war would have been very useful, Simon.”_

But no amount of disappointment could make me regret that decision. Every time I looked at her I saw it again: the blood running in her scuppers, the soft sound of knives sinking into flesh, the shame and dread and panic coiling in my belly.

Most of the time I don’t think about the _Minotaur_. I don’t like to. I shove it into a brassbound chest in my mind and lock it closed and just…keep it there.

Anyway, the Magus told me to wait, that he would see to everything. But he wasn’t the one who had to wait in the Caribbean with the Royal Navy after me, no friends, and no ship. I was lucky that Shepard found me.

It’s because of the Magus that we have the _Merwolf_. He bought and armed her for us; named her, too. In return, we follow his guidance and occasionally do things for him. (Most privateers have an owner or owners on shore; this is no different.)

Shepard was reluctant at first—said he didn’t want to take orders from a white man in England he’d never met—but I convinced him. I’d already destroyed my career; I couldn’t disappoint the Magus as well.

So far it’s been…fine. (Mostly.) They both hate slavery and European powers interfering in the New World, so as long as we’re fighting for freedom and Shepard has time for his research it all works out.

Me, I just hate standing still.

I should write to Agatha. Especially if I’m going to be captured and hanged, it might give her some comfort if I wrote her a final letter. Even Baz would probably honour my dying wish, right?

I take out a fresh sheet of paper and dip my pen.

_Dear Agatha,_

Then I sit and stare at the words.

The problem is, I never know what to say to her. Even when I’m not about to die, I never feel that I’m saying the right thing.

We first met when I was on shore during the Peace. The Magus was in London for the Season and attending the usual round of parties. I was still a midshipman, even though I’d passed the examination for lieutenant months ago, and he said that it would do me good to meet people and “cultivate my influence.” He hated most of London society, he said, especially the peers and gentry who made their money on the backs of the poor and oppressed, but making connections was necessary for achieving our goals.

The parties were like some exotic form of Simon-specific torture. I’m brave enough under cannon fire, but if a Frenchman tied me up and said, “Simon, all you have to do to avoid the London Season is tell me all of the secrets you’ve learned in the service,” I’d say, “Wonderful, where should I begin?”

I’d spent the first half of my life in orphanages and the second half at sea, and neither had taught me anything useful for bowing and scraping and laughing politely at fancy people’s jokes. I didn’t talk right, or eat right, or know how to address a baron versus a marquess; every time I opened my mouth the other guests would exchange looks and ladies would giggle behind their fans. I could dance a fair sailor’s jig on deck, but in a cotillion I always managed to turn the wrong way or step on the hem of someone’s dress.

This particular party was especially terrible because Baz was there too. His family was also in London for the Season. (Because of course they were.) Luckily I spied him first: dressed in a black coat and impeccable white waistcoat, his cravat perfectly knotted and his inky hair tied with a ribbon, he looked like he had been born in a ballroom. As I watched he bowed to some lord and then gracefully took the hand of an elegant young lady who was probably the lord’s daughter.

I backed away, sidling past a potted orange tree and into the protective cover of a Grecian column.

“ _Oh, Baz, how charming you are,_ ” I muttered under my breath, imitating the lady.

“ _Why, thank you,_ ” I replied in my best imitation of Baz’s aristocratic drawl. “ _It only took me three hours and two valets to get dressed, and another to do my hair. Shall we get married this summer?_ ”

Still backing up, I struck something that emitted a soft gasp. I swung around to behold a vision in white silk. Her hair was piled atop her head with a strand of pearls wound through it; the hair was only a shade or two more golden than the pearls and even shinier. She had tiny feet in beaded slippers and soft brown eyes like a doe’s, and she lit up our shadowy corner like the moon. I blinked at her. (Possibly I was somewhat blinded.)

“Were you _talking_ to yourself?” said the vision, a crease appearing between her perfect brows.

“What? No.” I was distracted, already scanning the room for a better hiding place, because it was perfectly clear that someone who looked like _that_ wouldn’t want to share this one with me.

“Because I heard you talking to yourself,” she went on.

“I wasn’t,” I said. “I was only—“

“Hiding.”

“No! Of course not. Why would I want to—“

And then something finally occurred to me. “You’re hiding too.”

“Of course I am,” she said, without a trace of shame.

“But—why would _you_ need to hide?“

“Because if I go out there, someone will beg me to play the piano— _Oh, Miss Wellbelove, you have such accomplishments, not to mention five thousand a year!_ Or my mother will make me dance with someone horrible. And after I’ve danced with him enough, everyone will assume we have an understanding, and then I’ll be married, and then I’ll find myself in some country estate with five children.”

This was all said very fast. Somewhat dizzied, I turned it over in my mind. “So your parents want you to marry?”

“Haven’t you been paying attention?” she said, scathing. “Why else would they do all this? I am out this year, which means that I’m to be paraded about with all of London watching, like a cow to market, and if I’m lucky a gentleman will want to buy me. Except that _my_ family will pay _him_ for the honour.”

“That sounds…terrible,” I said.

“Yes!” she said. “Terrible! Exactly!” She eyed me, her gaze lingering on my blue uniform coat. “You are a sailor?”

I bowed; a crisp bow, at least, had been drilled into me on the quarterdeck. “Simon Snow, lately midshipman of His Majesty’s frigate _Indefatigable_. Ward of Sir David Llewellyn.”

“It must be wonderful, to be able to sail all around the world.”

I snorted a laugh. “‘Wonderful’ is not the first word that comes to mind.”

“No? But you can go anywhere, see anything.”

“I can go anywhere I am ordered, and see any port we happen to dock in. And in between I can be hungry, cold, and shot at.”

This was the closest I had ever come to complaining about my lot; the license nearly took my breath away. But so far she had not once looked at me like something rotten dragged into a ballroom.

She sighed. “I suppose it was too much to hope for.”

“You still have not told me who you are.”

“I suppose I can give you my name, although we have not been introduced. How very scandalous—afterwards you must pretend not to know me.”

“All right,” I said, bemused.

She dipped a graceful curtsey. “Miss Agatha Wellbelove,” she said, looking up at me with mischievous eyes.

She finagled a formal introduction from the Master of Ceremonies, and we spent all that night together. She even convinced me to dance, and with her across the set from me, looking meaningfully in the direction I was supposed to go next, I managed not to trip over my own feet. I felt almost _right_ , for once.

And best of all was Baz watching from the side of the room with his mouth hanging open, no doubt thinking, _Dear God, how did_ he _get a girl like_ that _?_ Even Baz, rich and handsome as he was, didn’t have someone like Agatha.

When I climbed into the carriage with the Magus at the end of the night I was grinning and elated, the same feeling I got after an enemy ship struck her colours: _we won and I survived_. The Magus took one look at me and laughed indulgently.

“Well done, Simon,” he said. “Agatha Wellbelove, hmmm? Well done indeed.”

We met at every party and ball and concert that season. Her parents didn’t mind; I was a naval officer with a bright future, and the Magus had a title and plenty of money. Once, after a long night of dancing (I was almost good at it by now, and I looked even better when Agatha was my partner) we ran outside into the garden. It was cold and little flakes of snow were drifting from the sky, almost the same colour as Agatha’s hair. We ducked behind a fountain and, greatly daring, I pulled her towards me and kissed her. (I thought she wanted me to; I thought that was what one _did_.)

I don’t know what I was expecting. (Fireworks? Choirs of angels?) Her mouth was warm under mine and I could feel her lips curling up in a smile. But when I pulled away (how long was one supposed to kiss for? Were there rules? No one had ever told me) the look on her face was considering.

“Well,” she said.

“Well,” I said. I still had her hands in mine. Should I lean in and kiss her again? (Did she want me to?) She leaned towards me, and I closed my eyes. But then she paused, and I felt her warm lips press against my cheek.

“Come, Simon,” she said, and led me back inside.

The Magus and I arrived late to the next assembly. (He was running one of his alchemical experiments in his study and had emerged looking harried and somewhat singed.) When I walked into the ballroom the dancing had already started. And there, at the head of the set, were Agatha and Baz.

My hands tightened into fists at my sides. Agatha was in a pink dress and long white gloves; Baz’s waistcoat was embroidered with tiny flowers and curling green vines. They looked like a matched set, one more poised than the other. As I watched they joined hands and floated down the line of couples; Baz said something and Agatha laughed, throwing her head back so that her ringlets danced. Baz smiled at her, and then his eyes slid to me, standing just inside the door. His smile widened into a grin.

“Disgraceful,” said one of the ladies standing next to me. “I don’t know why we tolerate it, really.”

“Well, his father _is_ a lord,” said her friend.

Baz, I realized. They were talking about Baz.

“And his mother _was_ a Pitch.”

“Well, the Pitches have always been somewhat…dark.” She tittered, fluttering her fan.

“I hear his father sent him away to sea so he wouldn’t embarrass the family. Luckily Lord Malcolm’s second wife is more…appropriate.”

A hot flush crept up my cheeks. I hated Baz for a long and varied list of reasons, but it had never occurred to me that his ancestry should be one of them. I wanted to take the silly ladies by the shoulders and shake them, explain all of the reasons they _should_ hate him instead, reasons more related to his terrible personality.

“Good evening,” I said to the ladies, shouldering into their little circle. “Lovely ball, innit?” I made sure the the vowels were as round and Northern as if I were just out of the orphanage.

The ladies were goggling at me over their fans. “I don’t…believe we’ve been introduced,” said the younger one faintly.

“Name’s Simon Snow, of His Majesty’s Navy,” I said. It felt strangely heady to break every single one of the rules I had spent the last several months painstakingly learning. “Good company, yeah? So _civilized_.” I nodded my head over at where Baz was bowing over Agatha’s hand. “I served with that bloke in my last ship. He’s an ass, but brave. Good dancer, too.”

“I…see,” said the other lady.

Then Agatha was at my elbow, towing me away with a hasty curtsey to the ladies.

“What are you _doing_ , Simon?” she hissed.

“Just having a conversation,” I said. “What are _you_ doing, dancing with _him_?” I had lost track somewhere of what I was supposed to be angry about, but I was quite sure I was still angry.

She laughed. “It’s a ball, Simon!” She tapped me on the shoulder with her fan. “I dance with lots of people!”

“But he’s…” I struggled for a word.

“What, exactly?” she said, eyeing me.

“Evil!” I said. “He’s _evil!”_

She raised pale eyebrows. “Oh, dear. How very terrifying.” I opened my mouth, but the words wouldn’t come. Here in this glittering ballroom with the chandeliers throwing golden light my first hungry, bloody days on the _Indefatigable_ seemed very far away.

She took me by the arm. “It was nothing, Simon. Just a dance. Let us have a glass of cordial, and then I believe my next two dances are unclaimed.”

It was later, as I was coming back from getting a breath of air outside (and, to be honest, pissing behind the stables, where I didn’t have to see any of the fucking people of quality _looking_ at me), that I ran into Baz himself.

He was leaning against the back wall of the house, one long leg crossed over the other. He had taken off his white gloves and his hands looked strangely bare. His breath came out in clouds in the cold, but his eyes were glittering, almost feverish.

“Snow,” he said, looking down that long nose at me. He was only three inches taller, but he had a knack for making it seem like more. All the reasons I hated him came crowding back into my mind.

“Pitch,” I said, making as if to pass him and go back inside.

“Miss Wellbelove, hmmm?” he said. “Quite a coup.”

I rounded on him. “What, do you want her for yourself?”

“Sir,” he said.

“What?”

“I outrank you, midshipman.”

“We’re not on a ship, _sir_ ,” I said. “But if we were, _sir_ , I would ask you what you were at, dancing with my girl.”

“Should I congratulate you on your engagement, then? Am I to expect an invitation to the blessed event?”

I stepped closer, thrusting my face up into his. “Leave her _alone_ , Pitch. She doesn’t need you.”

“And you are such a fine catch,” he sneered. “Who is your father, Snow? Your mother? You would have no family at all if that mad Welshman had not plucked you from the orphanage. We would all be better off if you went back to the streets where you belong.”

“I _earned_ my place,” I said. I was so close I could feel his breath on my face.

“And I didn’t?”

“Your kind never does.”

“My _kind?”_

“Yeah. All you lords and gentleman, with your carriages and titles.”

He took a step backwards, out of my space, and turned his shoulder to me. “You know _nothing_.”

“I know you’re no better than me.”

He pulled a handkerchief out of his coat and pressed it to his face. “Go away, Snow.” He sounded tired. “Your ignorance offends me.”

“I know people talk about you,” I said.

“What?” he snapped, swinging back around.

“I heard them—the ladies, talking about your mother.”

“ _Shut up about my mother,”_ he snarled.

It was a strange thing, fighting with Baz; it was awful, but also _good_ , as if all the hatred was setting me alight from the inside. But this time there was something in his voice that made me actually take a step back. I put up my hands.

“Sorry,” I muttered.

“What did you say, midshipman?”

“I am terribly sorry, _sir_ ,” I said, putting as much sarcasm as I could manage into it.

“Good,” he said. He turned away and put both hands on the wall behind him, bowing his head. His shoulders shook; I thought he might be laughing.

“Your Miss Wellbelove is safe from me,” he said, his voice somewhat muffled. “Her parents would never let her marry me in any case. I hope you both live to a ripe old age.”

I didn’t know what to say. Baz always made me feel wrong-footed (even more wrong-footed than usual.) I nodded (even though he was still turned away and couldn’t see me) and escaped inside.

But he stayed away from Agatha. (I don’t think it was because of me; I think he had heard the whispers too.) Soon after that the war started up again. And then the duel, and after that I didn’t see Baz until…well, until I saw him on the deck of the fucking _Vampire_.

By the time I went back to sea Agatha and I had an understanding. Not a formal, talk-to-your-father-and-set-a-date proposal. (I didn’t think it fair to her until my future was a bit more assured—master and commander at least—and Agatha was in no hurry.) But it was understood that she would wait for me.

I’d been made lieutenant, too, and the Magus thought I had her father’s influence at the Admiralty Board to thank for it. Every time I thought of Agatha, in the towering waves of the forties or the brutal storms of the Caribbean, I felt warm inside, as if she was a coal I carried in my pocket.

The problem was, when you got past the fact that we both hated high society and high expectations, Agatha and I had little in common. She wrote me letters, regular as clockwork, full of horses—she seemed to spend most of her time hunting—and servants and whist and excursions to the seaside with her friend Minty. And I sweated over my responses, sure that this was the time I would say the wrong thing at last. (I was bound to, yeah? It was—what’s the word? Inevitable.)

And then came the mutiny. It took me a long time to send her a letter after that. When I finally wrote I released her from our understanding. (I had to; I was dishonoured and probably doomed to hang.) I didn’t expect a reply.

But to my surprise, she sent one anyway. She said that she still considered herself bound by our understanding, that she was certain that I hadn’t done half the things that people said, and that my name would be cleared soon enough. She would wait for me, she said.

Penny’s letters told a different story. Her family and Agatha’s didn’t travel in the same circles. (They _couldn’t;_ her father is in trade, and half her family is from the East Indies besides.) But they lived in London too, and she said the mutiny was all anyone talked about that year. (Tact is not Penny’s strong suit.)

Rumour said that Agatha’s parents were furious, her mother especially; she had married down and expected better of her daughter. They had ordered her to disavow our connection, but Agatha stubbornly refused. I didn’t understand why, but I wasn’t going to argue.

But none of that made it into Agatha’s letters. They kept coming, slightly less regular now that I was a fugitive, just as full of horses and hounds and visiting.

Now, in my tiny cabin in the _Merwolf_ , I throw down my pen in disgust. What can I write to her? _Dear Aggie, the Navy has caught me at last, and best of all, it’s_ Baz _who will hang me in the end._ (How completely, utterly predictable.) _Sorry you’ve waited all these years. I hope you find someone better than me. Love, Simon._

No, better to write her nothing at all. At least then she can believe I died well.

***

When I come on deck night is starting to close in, the sky purpling. The _Vampire_ is noticeably closer. Keris and Gareth have finally succeeded in shipping a jury rudder and we have some steering. We won’t be able to sway up a new topmast until we can stop running, but none of us expect to make it that long.

“Simon.” Shepard is standing at my elbow. “I have something to show you.”

I follow him below. There are charts spread out all over the table, together with a magnifying glass and a compass and a pile of obscure books.

“I’ve been doing some research,” Shepard begins. I barely hold back a groan. No good idea in history has begun with those words. I owe Shepard my life—among other things—but he has strange ideas sometimes.

“First, I’ve rerun the calculations, and I believe our position lies here.” He points at a spot on the map, partway between the Bahamas and Bermuda. I nod. My calculations are similar, and Shepard is the best navigator we have. He’s been all up and down the Atlantic seaboard. He knows these waters better than any of us.

“We both know the _Vampire_ will catch us eventually. But I have an idea.” He grins, his eyes bright. “I suggest we run straight ahead.”

“Into the Sargasso Sea?” I frown. “There’s no wind.”

The Sargasso Sea has a strange reputation among sailors. When I was a mid, I remember listening to the tales the foremast jacks would tell on deck at night: drowned sailors, ghost ships, giant squid and other sea monsters. Golden seaweed that grabs at ships and holds them fast, or pulls sailors into the sea to be devoured. That’s all nonsense, of course, but the wind and water are strange enough on their own. The Sea lies square in the Horse Latitudes—so named because ships would be becalmed there for so long that the conquistadors and settlers would have to throw their horses overboard. It’s bounded on all four sides by strong currents that flow clockwise around the area, creating a still region in the center. It is nearly the last place I would want to sail while being pursued by the Royal Navy.

“There’s no wind,” he says, his eyes gleaming. “But there’s something else.”

This time I do groan. “Shepard, the _Royal Navy_ is after us. We don’t have time for fairy tales.”

“What if they’re true?”

***

Later, on deck, we gather the crew around and put it to them. When I was in the King’s Navy this kind of meeting would have been unthinkable; the captain and officers made the decisions and the ship’s people carried them out. Anything else was mutiny.

But the _Merwolf_ is not that kind of ship. When the crew first came together we drafted Articles, just as the pirates did of old. Shepard refused to sail without them, and I had had my fill of tyrannical captains and brutal officers. The Magus scoffed at the idea ( _“You are a leader, Simon; do not fear to lead.”)_ But Shepard was right: the Articles and all of the arguing and wrangling they require have made us something more than a crew, something closer to family.

They’re nervous; I can see it in the way that Trixie wraps her arms around Keris, Keris leaning her chin on top of her lover’s head, parting the flyaway strands. I can see it in the way Gareth stands with his hips cocked belligerently forward (as if I did not pull him out of the drink two hours gone!), and the way the others mutter and shift from side to side. We all know the odds.

Shepard talks for some minutes. I don’t interfere. (The _Merwolf_ is mine, which makes me nominally captain, but that isn’t how we do things.) He’s animated, his hands talking as much as his mouth. I can feel his enthusiasm transmitting itself gradually to the rest of the crew. When we started this meeting they had no hope; now they do. That’s Shepard’s magic.

When he reaches the end he holds out his hands, palms up. It’s hot, even in the lowering dark, and most of us stripped off our shirts long since; the tattoos crawl up his bare arms, black against his brown skin. “So, what do you think?”

“Do we have another option?” That’s Auguste, one of the men Shepard brought on board. He’s from Saint-Domingue, now Haiti; like several of the other men aboard he’s a former slave sailor who fought in the Haitian revolution, then tired of the endless infighting on land.

I wish Penny were here. She would know what to do.

I wish the Magus were here.

“It’ll be night soon,” I say. “We can wait until it’s dark and change course in the night—lie as close the wind as we can and try to work our way to windward.”

“We can drop a decoy,” says Rhys. He’s our quartermaster: lost both his legs in a whaling accident in the Pacific, but he’s been afloat since his father took him to sea as a boy, and what he doesn’t know about sailing isn’t worth knowing. “Try to throw them off our scent.”

I nod. “That’s our plan, then. Try the decoy and course change; if that fails, we use Shepard’s plan. All in favour?”

They didn’t trust me, at first. Some of them still don’t. I’m Royal Navy, and British, and many of them have every reason to distrust someone who looks like me. But it’s been two years and I haven’t failed them yet. (We haven’t failed each other.) Our little patchwork crew of misfits and outcasts and refugees has started to rely on each other.

We eye each other silently for a moment, then a ripple of nods goes around the circle.

“Aye,” they say.

***

For the next several hours we’re too busy to think, which is a mercy. The sky fades and fades until night falls suddenly, like a curtain sweeping closed. It’s black as pitch, only a sliver of moon, and I can almost believe this will work.

At last Trixie climbs in over the taffrail; she’s the smallest and lightest, so it was her job to take out the decoy. She’s unusually subdued, her wet dandelion puff hair lying flat along the delicate curves of her skull.

We’ve already extinguished all the lights aboard the _Merwolf_ , and it’s so dark that we can barely see the decoy towing astern: a raft knocked together from spare spars, with two more crossed to mimic crosstrees, three lanterns flying along its “yard.”

“Cast off,” I say, and they loose the cables that connect the raft to the _Merwolf_. We’re all quiet as we watch the lights bobbing away astern. Baz will believe it, I think. He will want to believe it. He can’t want me that badly.

“Change course,” Shepard says, and the _Merwolf’s_ people melt away to their duties until only the two of us are left on the deck, watching the decoy fall farther and farther away in our wake.

We’re still standing there when the first cannon goes off. We see the flare through the clear night air, miles away, and I feel the rumble in my chest.

 _That’s right,_ I whisper to Baz in my mind: almost a prayer. _Believe it, and sail away, and forget about me._

***

Two bells later I’m lying in my cot, trying to sleep.

I’ve never had trouble sleeping at sea. Even when I was a snot-nosed mid still crying for land, my hammock rocked me to sleep like a baby. (Some other baby, I mean; I don’t think I was ever rocked to sleep in a mother’s arms.)

I know I need to sleep. I need to be on deck at first light to see if Baz took the bait. But whenever I try to close my hands over it sleep slips away.

For some reason I’m thinking of the flying fish.

I was 14 years old. I’d been at sea six months, still lonely and seasick and hollow with missing a home that had never really existed. It was a make and mend day and the _Indefatigable’s_ people were spread out over the decks, sewing themselves warm-weather slops and rebraiding each other’s long pigtails. I was standing off to one side near the goat and chicken pens, watching the other young mids skylarking in the rigging and wishing I could join them. (I couldn’t; the heights made my head spin, and Baz had made very sure the other mids would never want my company.)

Suddenly a cry went up, and I looked towards the rail just in time to be hit in the face by something warm and wriggling and spiny. I started back and it flopped to the deck: a fish, long-bodied and silver, with wide delicate fins spread out like wings. Its mouth opened and closed gently as it lay at my feet.

As I watched, wide-eyed, more fish leapt from the sea and arced into the sky. It was like something from a story, constellations of winged fish soaring through the heavens like stars. More silver forms soared over the rails and landed on the deck until the boards were covered with wriggling bodies, like silver coins piled in a bank vault.

The men whooped; abandoning their mending, they began grabbing fish off the decks and tossing them in buckets. (Everyone was already heartily sick of soft tack and salt pork.) I tried to ignore them, fixing my eyes on all the wonder falling from the skies.

Then I realized that under all the chaos on the deck there was a noise coming from behind the pens, soft and somehow private. I edged around the pen, thinking that perhaps one of the animals was sick or injured.

There, on the other side of the pen, screened from the rest of the deck, was Tyrannus Basilton Grimm-Pitch.

He was on his hands and knees on the deck, water and slime coating the knees of snowy breeches I would never be able to afford. I couldn’t make out at first what he was doing. Then I realized: he was gathering up the flying fish and throwing them back in the water.

His hair had worked its way free of its tail so that I couldn’t see his face at first. Then he moved and the hair fell aside and the soft noise came again, and I realized he was crying.

I sidled closer, and now I could hear him whispering to the fish as he picked them up: “Go on then, back in the water—you’ll die if you stay here.” He surged to his feet and started pushing at the fish with his toes, trying to sweep them back into the water. “Go! Get out of here!”

I moved—to go forward or to retreat back to the other side of the pens, I’m still not sure—but he must have caught the motion out of the corner of his eye, for he suddenly froze. We stood there for a moment, looking at each other.

Baz has a cruel face, all sharp edges and arched brows. I can never tell what he’s thinking.

But his face as he looked at me that day was utterly blank. His eyes were wide and grey and I could see the tracks the tears had made down his cheeks, shining against the brown skin like the scales of the fish.

He drew himself up and opened his mouth, and I knew he was about to say something cutting and unforgivable. So before he could say it I dropped to my knees and started gathering the gasping fish toward me.

“Come on, help me,” I said.

Baz closed his mouth and stared at me.

“There’s too many for me to do alone,” I said.

After a long moment Baz sank to his knees and started gathering up the fish on his side. We worked in silence until the flow of silver over the rail stopped like a sudden squall passing and all the fish we could find were back in the sea. And then I rose and went back around the pens without another word.

If he behaved any differently towards me after that it was to be especially cruel, as if he had something to make up for. Neither of us ever said a word to anyone about what had happened. I had almost forgotten it.

Now, in the _Merwolf_ , I shift in my hammock. It’s been three long years of running, three long years of trying to hold back the tide.

But it’s been longer than that, really. I feel like I’ve been fighting all my life, always one short step from being swept away.

So why, after all that—after everything—should it be the thought of some fish that makes me want to cry?

I fall into sleep at last, chased by Baz’s 14-yr-old face: raw and grieving and cracked open like a wound.

I’m up on deck again before first light, sweeping the sea with my glass.

It happens all at once: first the sky is dark, just a flush of pink around the rim. Then suddenly the sun peeks over the horizon, washing sea and sky with blue.

And there, her sails cutting dark notches in the horizon, is the _Vampire_.

I feel more than hear a ripple go around the crew. A few muttered curses.

I gather us all together on the deck again.

I look around the circle, all 74 souls of my little crew. There’s not one of them who’s afraid to fight and die, from broad Auguste all the way down to tiny Trixie. But I don’t want to make them. I don’t want to have that on my conscience. I swore to protect them.

“We can all see the decoy didn’t work,” I say, looking at each person in turn. “So. Are we all agreed?”

“Aye,” they all say, Shepard last of all.

I look him in the eye. He has the same sober look as the rest of the crew, but I can see the delight there too, spilling out around the sides of his mouth. He’s the only one of us who’s sailing towards something instead of just away, away, away.

I gesture to the wheel. “Lead on.”

And so we sail into the Sargasso Sea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These first two chapters are basically my love song to the Patrick O’Brian Aubrey/Maturin series (which, if you haven’t read, oh my god you should, although I highly recommend doing it with a glossary).
> 
> I also recently discovered the 1998 ITV adaptation of the Horatio Hornblower series, which I watched for, ahem, research. I highly recommend it, and fellow fans will recognize that Baz and Simon were midshipmen on the same ship as Horatio.
> 
> Simon’s _Merwolf_ is loosely based on a number of Baltimore-built topsail schooners that were used as privateers during the War of 1812. I’m particularly grateful to the [Pride of Baltimore](https://pride2.org/) for extensive videos of what it’s like to sail a topsail schooner.
> 
> Baz’s _Vampire_ is based on several historical RN ships, including the [HMS Tartar](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Tartar_\(1801\)) (which, I note, is a Narcissus-class frigate…perfect for Baz!).
> 
> As Simon notes, 1813 is almost 100 years after the Golden Age of Piracy in the Caribbean. However, privateers (privately owned ships of war that sometimes acted almost like officially sanctioned pirates) played an important role in War of 1812, and the end of the Napoleonic Wars brought a resurgence of both privateering and piracy. Privateers were often sponsored by Latin American and Caribbean nations fighting for independence from colonial rule. Simon is therefore actually slightly ahead of his time (although he would probably be surprised to hear it).
> 
> Mutiny was a common path to piracy. The mutiny on the _Minotaur_ is loosely based on the historical mutiny on the [HMS Hermione](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Hermione_\(1782\)), which was just as bloody and infamous as Lamb describes. The mutiny of the Bounty was also famous at the time, and Lamb’s letter and description draws on the journals and letters of William Bligh, captain of the Bounty.


	2. The Mist

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Simon and Baz discover what’s in the Sargasso Sea…mostly the hard way.

SIMON

We start seeing the weed around mid-morning: golden brown, it floats on the surface like a lady’s hair, rocking gently on the waves. First we pass the occasional clump, then patches, and then finally a wide golden sheet that the _Merwolf_ parts, cutting a blue swath behind her like a plough through hay.

The wind lasts a few hours more. Then it softens to a gentle breeze and then to a breath and then, finally, utter stillness.

I order the sweeps out. I take my turn at the long oars with everyone else, until the sweat runs down my bare back. The _Vampire_ sends out her boats to tow. Both ships are wearing every scrap of fabric that might catch a stray gust, pumping water onto the sails to make them draw better. And all the time the _Vampire_ continues to gain.

I hoped Baz would give up when he saw we were steering for the Sargasso Sea. We’re only one small ship, and even if (when) he takes us, he could be becalmed out here with both ships.

But he’s shown no sign of giving up so far, and really, I should have known better. He’s always been fucking ruthless.

The crew is exhausted from pumping and pulling and watching the sails for every opportunity to wring out a tiny burst of speed. Even Shepard is starting to look discouraged.

And then, suddenly, the mist.

It rises suddenly on the horizon, wafting upwards like fingers reaching out of the mirrored water.

I study it through my glass, passing it to Shepard so that he can stare at it too. It looks like any other mist, but it’s lying where no mist should be. The sun is burning overhead and there’s no land on any of our charts between here and Bermuda, over three hundred miles away.

I look over at Shepard. He looks back, his eyes shining, a wide smile stretching at his lips.

“Well, I’m glad _someone_ is happy,” I grumble.

He just grins wider. “Imagine what’s in there!” he says.

“That’s exactly the problem,” I retort. “I _am_.” Around us the crew has paused to look nervously at the approaching mist. Keris shouts at them and they scramble back into action, casting long glances over their shoulders.

Behind us there is a shattering roar; the _Vampire_ is firing her bow chasers. The nine-pound balls skip across the water between us, striking foam off the placid surface. They fall short; she is still too far away, but closing fast.

“We won’t make it in time,” says Keris.

I nod. “Throw the guns overboard. Save the chasers and two of the carronades.”

Shepard hesitates, then nods. He strides away and begins snapping orders. The guns go over the side one by one, making great gashes in the golden weed. The water is so clear that I can watch them fall for a long way down.

We slow while the crew works to get the guns overboard, and the _Vampire_ creeps closer. But with the guns gone the _Merwolf_ is faster, nimbler. Those who were working to get the guns over the side rejoin the people at the sweeps. She glides through the water faster and faster, and the _Vampire_ falls behind again.

It feels good to work; I don’t have to think while I’m pulling, or watch the mist come closer. I put my back into it, feeling my muscles contract and release, contract and release. I might die today, but for these moments I am here, in my body, feeling the sun on the skin and the sweat trickling down my nose and between my shoulder blades.

It might be minutes or hours later when Keris taps my shoulder and I slide out to let her take my place. I return to the bow, rolling my shoulders to get the kinks out. Shepard is still at the wheel, although there’s no more need for navigation; it’s obvious where we’re going.

The mist is less than a musket-shot away now. From this close it seems to have depths, layers, as if shapes move within its folds. I feel a shiver pass through me.

We glide closer, closer. Behind us the _Vampire_ tries another shot; it falls short, and I hardly notice. All of my attention is fixed on the white wall ahead of us.

“’Vast sweeping,” I call. The rowers rest on their oars; the _Merwolf_ glides forward under her own way and the breath of wind in her sails alone.

“Leadsman forward,” I say. It’s so quiet aboard that I don’t need to raise my voice.

Trixie runs forward and casts the lead-line, calling out the depth. We’re still in deep water; I breathe out a sigh. Although I know there’s no land here (I’ve studied the charts, over and over again) I have a sailor’s dread of sailing into shoals in a fogbank in unknown waters.

Now, when we’re almost at the mist, the wind picks up, gusting from the north across our larboard beam.

“In sweeps,” I say. The crew stows the oars and comes to gather along the rail, peering nervously into the grey.

The first fingers of the mist reach out to us, the wind gusting diaphanous strands like a lady’s veil. The sun dims and fades.

At first we can still see the sun on the water behind us; it already seems like a different world, warm and colourful. In our wake the _Vampire_ is bearing down on us, a red and black shadow in a bright world.

 _Goodbye, Baz_ , I think.

Then the mist closes around us like a curtain and everything turns to grey.

BAZ

The muttering begins when the fog bank appears on the horizon.

At first it’s quiet, an indefinable mood that creeps over the ship. Then, as it becomes clear that Simon Snow is sailing for the fog bank instead of well around it (as any intelligent person would obviously do), it changes.

“It’s unnatural, that’s what it is,” a waister says under his breath as he works. “That’s the devil’s fog, mark my words.”

“Mr. Devereaux, take that man’s name,” I snap.

But he isn’t the only one thinking it. The _Vampire_ is a floating city of 250 souls, and any captain worth his commission can read the mood of his men without being told. I know perfectly well that they all scared each other silly telling stories about the Sargasso Sea on deck last night.

But the men aren’t wrong. This fog _is_ unnatural.

I order the chasers to fire even though we are out of range; there’s nothing like the noise and activity of the great guns to settle a skittish crew.

Then we see the _Merwolf’s_ guns going over the side.

She surges ahead. A growing wind bells her sails.

Then, nearly silently, she glides into the mist.

For a moment I can see her stern lanterns glowing through the grey like eyes. Then the fog closes over them as well, and the _Merwolf_ —and Simon Snow—are gone.

Dev turns to me. “Well. Shall I have the men put her about, sir?”

It takes me a moment to understand: he thinks it’s over. He wants to turn around.

“No,” I say. “Steady on, lieutenant.”

“But sir—“

“Do you have a question, Mr. Devereaux?” I snap, rounding on him.

“Baz,” he says in a low voice, flicking his eyes around the deck. Nearly the entire watch below is forgoing their rest to stand on deck and eye the approaching fog. Every man within earshot is straining to hear our conversation. He lowers his voice still further, taking a step closer. “It’s only one ship.”

“A _pirate_ ship,” I say. “It is our duty to pursue her. She is defying the King’s law and threatening the King’s shipping.”

“Not from inside that mist she isn’t.”

“ _Simon Snow_ is on that ship,” I hiss under my breath. “A _mutineer_.”

“Baz, I know you have…history with Snow, but—“

“And what history, exactly, are you referring to?”

He shifts uneasily. “You know—I only mean—“

“We will continue on our present course,” I say, cutting him off. “Is that clear, Mr. Devereaux?”

He hesitates. I can see a lifetime of naval discipline warring with his own inclinations. Dev would never admit it, but he’s as superstitious as any of the men.

Discipline wins. He bows. “Perfectly, sir.”

“Beat to quarters,” I say, and the drummer strikes a fine rolling beat. (It is perhaps slightly faster than usual, but no one minds.) The bosun’s pipes wail. Habit takes over as the men run to their appointed places; the pounding of many feet fills the uneasy silence, and soon the air is filled with the sulfurous scent of gunpowder and slow-match. The marines crouch in the tops, pointing their muskets towards the mist.

I stand on the quarterdeck and watch the mist come closer. I train my glass on it, hoping for some glimpse of the _Merwolf_ through the fog, but see nothing.

At the last minute I take a breath and hold it, as if I’m diving underwater.

And then the _Vampire_ sails into the fog.

***

The mist immediately wraps us so thickly that I can’t see the bowsprit from my place on the quarterdeck. The men in the boats ahead might as well be in another world, except that the lines stay taut and the ship keeps ghosting forward.

I strain my ears, listening for the telltale sounds of another ship moving through the fog. But there’s nothing except the sound of my own ship, my own men.

One of the foretopmen calls to his mate. It’s shockingly loud in the muffling mist. “Silence fore and aft,” I snap, and the sound is abruptly cut off. The leadsman is calling out the soundings in a whisper that carries like a shout.

We glide forward for some time with no change. I’m hoping that we’ll come quickly to the other side of the bank, but no luck; the dull whiteness goes on and on.

I’m thinking furiously, trying to divine from what I know of Snow and what I saw of the seamanship of his crew what he’ll do next. He’ll want to be deep in the mist, I think. And the _Merwolf_ steered straight at the fog, as if they knew something I didn’t. (As if they knew where they were going.)

When we served together Snow tended to bull his way through things, expecting strength and confidence to carry the day. (I have to admit that a surprising number of times he was right.) In the end I have no better idea than to keep straight on.

Suddenly there’s a muffled shout from the boats ahead: “Hard a’ starboard!” Every man on the quarterdeck with me jumps at the sudden noise. The boats lurch to the right; I still can’t see them, but the lines from the boats pull hard in that direction.

The master puts the wheel over. The _Vampire_ heels, and I climb the rising deck to grasp the larboard rail.

There: I think I see something, off in the mist. I stare hard into the whiteness, trying to force it to part with my eyes. Then a gust of wind rips a hole in the murk and I recognize it: a mast. I have my mouth open to shout for the cannons. Then more of the mist sweeps away and I can suddenly see it clear: a wrecked ship, reaching out of the water like a skeletal hand.

I have to fight to stop myself from jerking backwards. There are shouts from all over the ship as others see it too.

All we can see of the wrecked ship is the twin masts rising from the water, strands of weed clinging to them as if trying to drag them back down. And there: a skeleton, leering at us from the exposed crosstrees. Bending over the rail, I can see the rest of the ship is slowly becoming part of the sea floor. The _Vampire_ has carved a path through the weed, and the water is so clear that I can see right down to the coral encrusting the wreck’s hull.

Ahead, the leadsman is still whisper-shouting the soundings, his voice shaking a bit: still deep enough for the _Vampire_ to swim, but shallowing, as if the sea floor is slanting upwards.

My eye catches on something else deep under the water. Leaning farther over the rail I squint into the depths. The weed casts odd rippling shadows, but there: the shapes resolve into tall stone columns reaching towards the surface. They’ve been leached colourless by the sea, almost unrecognizable under the layers of coral, but I can make out the telltale lines of something manmade. The columns support something that might be a portico, the sea-life creating a kind of frieze across its surface. The wrecked ship has settled half on top of it, the other half broken off and lying far down on the sea floor.

I squint; between the rippling water and the dimness it is hard to make out details. But I’m reasonably certain the ship didn’t run aground on the ruins. The building is so deep that only the tops of the sunken ship’s masts poke out of the water, plenty of draft for a ship her size. Which means that something else broke the ship.

As I watch, a long, dark shape passes between me and the wreck.

“There are _houses_ down there,” someone says wonderingly. I shake my head to clear it and cross to the other rail, forcing myself to stroll. The weed is starting to thin, and I can see more great buildings under the water, built on the same massive scale as the first. We’re sailing down a kind of gap between them, as if promenading down some great city way.

And then, as we’re all staring down into the water like idiots, a ship looms out of the mist.

For a split second I think it’s another wreck. Then I hear the one-two bark of cannons, the muzzle-flash lighting the whole underside of the mist, and I realize the truth.

The _Merwolf_ has found us.

I roar for the men forward to cut the cables to the boats so we can maneuver. That’s all I have time for before the _Merwolf_ strikes us amidships. She hits at an angle and slides along the side until the two ships nestle close together. I have to admire Snow’s seamanship; it’s a brutally efficient point from which to board.

Then men boil up from the _Merwolf’s_ bow. They throw grappling hooks, leap across the span of water between the ships, grabbing onto whatever ropes and rigging they can.

“Repel boarders!” I shout. My own men muster at the sides, but they’re caught off guard, too slow to push back the pirates before they can make the deck.

The _Merwolf’s_ two remaining larboard cannons go off again, firing straight into our gun-ports. I hear screams from the gun-crews below. Then our guns go off; the balls rip into the schooner’s sides at point-blank range, but there are almost no men left in her to hit. She’s devoted almost all her force to boarding.

And there, at the head of the boarding party, is Simon Snow, flanked by a tall black man with tattoos curling up his arms and a broad-shouldered woman with inky dark skin and long braids. In the misty gloom Snow’s hair shines like dusty sunshine. He carries a pistol in one hand and a cavalry saber in the other. As I watch he shoots one man, tosses the gun aside, pulls another from his belt, and fires again. His companions are laying about themselves with cutlasses. Into the hole they’ve made Snow charges ahead, slashing his sword and howling like a madman. My men fall back. (I don’t blame them.)

I realize I’m staring. I’d forgotten what Snow looks like when he fights: his eyes narrowed and intent, every movement compact and purposeful.

There’s a mix of anger and humiliation roiling in my belly at how neatly he caught us. But somehow the word that floats to the top of my mind is neither of those things.

 _Beautiful_.

I shake myself. There are no orders to give; even if they could hear me over the din the men are already carrying out their duties, slashing at the lines of the pirates’ grappling hooks and trying to force the ships apart. So instead I draw my own sword, leap down from the quarterdeck and throw myself into the mass of struggling men in the waist.

The fencing lessons my father arranged for me are useless in this kind of fight. I grab the shoulder of a pirate threatening one of my men and spin him around, stab him in the side, and drop him to the deck. Another turns to me; I elbow him hard in the face and then knee him in the groin.

Across the battle Snow catches sight of me. His face is streaked with dirt and blood, covering up the freckles. He grins at me, feral.

“Baz!” he roars, and begins to hack his way towards me. I feel a curl in my belly of something that might be anticipation. Of course this is how it would end: Snow and me, meeting on a battlefield. On opposite sides. (Always.)

SIMON

I’m going to kill him this time. I swear I will.

He’s staring at me, those grey eyes wide. He looks almost innocent, for a moment. Then his eyes narrow and he begins fighting his way towards me as well.

Good. 

The deck is slippery with blood and water. The air hangs thick with fog or smoke, I can’t tell which.

To my right Keris throws a grenade down the main hatch to clear the men below. Shepard and a small band of Merwolves are holding the ladder, for now. We’ve caught the _Vampire_ by surprise, but it won’t last. We don’t have enough men to cover all of the ladders. Eventually the men below will rally to make a charge from one of the hatches and we’ll be overcome. Or the guns will simply batter holes in the _Merwolf’s_ sides until she sinks.

We all knew this was a desperate gamble. We talked about it, back on the _Merwolf_ , before we attacked. We agreed together that we wouldn’t surrender. All that waits for us after capture is death or slavery (or marriage, which Trixie seems to feel is much the same thing.)

That doesn’t mean I’m happy to go.

None of us wanted this. But Baz wouldn’t stop. (He _never_ stops.) So now this is all that’s left.

I’m going to take him with me when I go, though.

There are only three men between me and Baz now. I block a thrust from the first and kick the second toward Shepard and the Merwolves guarding the hatch. The first man rushes me; I trip him, knock him flat on the deck, and thrust my sword into his back. I don’t like killing (I never have) but I’m long past the point where that makes me hesitate. Later (if there is a later) maybe I’ll lie awake remembering the sound my sword made, going in; or maybe I’ll just shove it down into the little space where all my other killing has gone.

Baz thrusts the remaining man aside and suddenly there’s no remaining space between us. He’s there, taller than me (still) and older, but still with the same haughty expression on his face. I want to punch it off.

We’re circling each other warily now. His long hair has come out of its tail, falling in long strands that curl slightly around his collar. This close his face looks hollow, all grey eyes and grey-brown skin and cheekbones punctuated by a high, arched nose.

“Snow,” he sneers. “I should have known you’d turn pirate.”

“D’ye think I _chose_ this?” I snarl. “I didn’t have a choice. None of us had a choice.”

“There’s always a choice, Snow.” He lunges forward, a gentleman’s fencing move; I slash it aside. His momentum carries him past me and I pivot to face him. He wheels, his hair and coattails flying. (Still so fucking graceful.)

“ _You_ have choices,” I say. “You have money, family. Anything you want. _Everything_.”

“You think so?” He laughs, high and mocking. He slashes down and I catch his blade on mine. The hilts ring together; I step forward, into his space. We’re face to face now; I can feel his breath on my skin. His eyes bore into mine.

“Just kill me, Snow,” he whispers. “You’ve always wanted to. I’m dead either way.”

“What?” I shove him backwards and lower my sword. He looks back at me, expressionless, breathing hard. His eyes are the same colour as the mist-covered sea.

“Simon!” I hear Shepard’s shout.

There’s a high keening sound like nothing I’ve heard before, men screaming all around me. The knots of struggling men are breaking apart, staring upwards with terrified eyes. I risk taking my eyes off Baz (he doesn’t look likely to kill me right away anyway) and follow his eyes upward.

For a long moment my eyes refuse to make sense of what they see. There’s a…head snaking out of the mist, twenty feet above the deck. It has a long serpentine snout longer than a man’s body, with frilled tendrils ringing the spot where its jaw meets its long neck. More tendrils, dripping with seawater, droop from its jaw. The keening noise is coming from the creature.

Then its jaws gape open, showing a double ring of razor teeth.

“Fuck,” Baz says. I can’t help it; I laugh. The sound is somewhat hysterical.

Seamen from both ships are screaming and scattering. Baz is shouting up at the Royal Marines in the tops: “ _Shoot_ it, you fools!”

I have to admire their discipline, or maybe it’s just that they have nowhere to go; they reload their muskets with systematic hurry and turn them on the creature, firing into what they can see of it through the fog.

“Aim for the eyes!” Baz shouts.

Then long tentacles snake over the bows. They’re covered in suckers, like an octopus’s arms, mottled green and grey and purple. One curls over the deck right in front of me. I run forward and chop at it with my saber; it writhes away.

By the hatch Shepard is gazing up at the creature, an expression suspiciously like delighted awe on his face.

“Shepard! The bow chasers!” I shout at him.

He opens his mouth, and I just know he’s going to argue.

“Shepard! If we survive this, you can marry it later!” I yell at him. “But until then you _have to shoot it.”_

He shakes his head, but he also leaps forward to the gun. Keris and Gareth are close behind him. They push aside the stunned gunner and seize the cannon. Keris grabs the slow-match from him while Gareth frantically swabs out the barrel and loads it.

I throw a leg over the tentacle in front of me as if it’s an unruly horse; the suckers are pulsating unpleasantly, grasping for my leg. I hack at it with my saber, and suddenly Baz is beside me, adding his blows to mine.

The tentacle jerks away; I fly off it, knocking Baz to the deck. The chaser goes off and the monster screams, the sound so high it hurts my ears. It tries to strike at the deck, but its head tangles in the rigging; the whole ship lists hard to the left, and I slide down the deck, dragging Baz with me. We fetch up against the rail, Baz’s warm weight half on top of me.

The chaser goes off again; if we all live through this I’ll congratulate them on their fine rate of fire. The monster screams and thrashes. The tentacles still wrapped around the ship contract, and I hear a terrible cracking sound. Men are boiling up from below; some of the forward guns on the main deck below are going off in a ragged fire, aiming toward where the body of the beast must be.

I disentangle myself from Baz (he’s all limbs) and pick myself up, sparing a glance toward the _Merwolf_. She’s on the far side of the ship from the creature and seems to have escaped the worst of the tentacles; the skeleton crew left aboard are frantically chopping at the ropes lashing the two ships together, trying to cut us apart. Trixie is screaming at us to come back, to leave the _Vampire_.

Baz is still lying on the deck. I shake him. “Come on, we have to go.” (He’s my enemy, but I’m not leaving anyone to that thing.)

Baz pushes himself up on his forearms and starts coughing. The cough goes on and on, shaking his whole body. I stare down at him, horrified. When at last it ends and he raises his head, there’s blood on his sleeve.

“Baz,” I say.

He glares up at me. And that’s when the tentacle swipes across the deck, knocking me off my feet again. I roll back up in time to see it knock a gaping hole in the rail. The ship lists again; Baz grabs at the rail, but, still weak from the coughing, misses his hold. I lurch forward and grab at his hand.

I’m too slow. The last thing I see is his shocked grey eyes as he vanishes over the side.

“Baz,” I say.

This isn’t right.

He can’t be gone.

(I wanted to kill him myself.)

I leap into the sea after him.

I hit the water hard and strike downwards. I can see his dark form sinking through the clear water; he’s so thin that his body doesn’t float. I drive myself down, get an arm around him, kick hard for the light. My head breaks the surface and I haul him upward until his head is clear as well. His eyes are closed and I’m not sure if he’s breathing.

The sea monster rears high above us. Its thrashing has ripped a hole in the fog. Behind its head I see the sun shining dimly through the grey. And there: a high dark cliff looming out of the mist.

As I open my mouth to shout up to the ship, something strikes me hard in the back of my head.

As the world spins around me, I see Shepard’s face looking down at us over the rail of the ship.

And then everything turns to water and grey.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the “truth is stranger than fiction” category, the [Sargasso Sea](http://ocean71.com/chapters/sea-like-none-other/) is perfectly real and really does lie in the calm area in the middle of a clockwise set of ocean currents. The sailors’ legends mentioned in the fic are all historical.
> 
> In fact, what is now known as the Bermuda Triangle overlaps with the Sargasso Sea; although the name dates from later than this period, Simon and Baz’s experience is well in line with the modern legends.
> 
> Unfortunately, in the modern day the odd currents around the Sargasso Sea have created an area known as the North Atlantic Garbage Patch. However, that would have made for a much less romantic fic.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [boys of bedlam (oh, but how were we to know?)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29675811) by [stainedglassflood](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stainedglassflood/pseuds/stainedglassflood)




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